welsh experience

Written by
Rg
Gregory

called out by the sun
this easter saturday morning
i'm sitting on a bank
in pistyllgwyn
(house of the sacred spring)
against a tall oak
(close to a daffodil-clump)
overlooking the road
between brechfa and abergorlech
on the west side of the valley
of the afon cothi
reading a poem by taliesin
from the sixth century
(the first poem in the oxford book
of welsh poetry in english)
which begins
there was a great battle saturday morning
and i have just reached the line
and when i'm grown old with my death hard upon me
when my youngest son
charges up the bank
and attacks me with his plastic sword
and sticks it in my heart
then sits down by my side
to succour me